Oliver Cowdery’s earliest experiences with Joseph Smith are useful models for understanding the workings of the Spirit in our own life.

There was the time when Oliver tried and failed to translate a portion of the Book of Mormon himself. Sometimes we read the Lord’s response to him as a rebuke. I’m not sure why that is so, when Oliver merely misunderstood through lack of experience what was required of him. To help him understand, the Lord told him, “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.” (D&C 9:7-8)

At almost the same time, in another revelation, the Lord acknowledged to Oliver that “thou hast inquired of me,” and He told Oliver how Oliver could understand the response to his inquiry. “I did enlighten thy mind,” and “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:14, 15, 23)

I don’t know how many – but not many – in this dispensation have duplicated Joseph Smith’s experience with revelation, in receiving visions and visits from heavenly messengers. Most of us are probably much more like Oliver; I know I am. Sometimes words and ideas come into my mind that did not originate there, as solutions to problems I have been pondering. Sometimes when I am doing family history research, I have a peculiar experience that tells me to keep going with whatever I’m searching, that within a few moments I will make a discovery, often not what I am looking for. Once in a while a wordless impression to do something, and generally to do it now! have come. But most often, when I have had unmistakable revelatory experiences, I sense them as “peace to [my] mind” or as warmth and mental assurance, confirming the rightness of some decision I was about to make. I consider all these to be revelations, because they reveal something to me that I had not known before, whether that revelation is new information or, more simply, an assurance of the rightness of things.

Frankly, I don’t have those experiences often enough, but when they come, they are remarkably similar one to another. That familiarity, that sense of shared experience, is what I often relate to when I am reading Church history documents, or hear a testimony being borne in class or over the pulpit. “Yes,” I think, “this man, this woman, knows.”

I recognized that familiar process and outcome when President Nelson described what the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve had done before issuing the policy we heard about on November 5. The experience he describes, the words he uses, seems to me somewhat different from that being tossed about the blogs and news media. If you care to get it straight, it’s only two and a half minutes long, and you can watch it at lds.org here (44:15 to 47:42). I have transcribed the relevant paragraphs in full:

We sustain 15 men who are ordained as prophets, seers, and revelators. When a thorny problem arises – and they only seem to get thornier each day! – these 15 men wrestle with the issue, trying to see all the ramifications of various courses of action, and they diligently seek to hear the voice of the Lord. After fasting, praying, studying, pondering, and counseling with my brethren about weighty matters, it is not unusual for me to be awakened during the night with further impressions about issues with which we are concerned, and my brethren have the same experience.

The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together, and share all the Lord has directed us to understand and to feel, individually and collectively, and then, we watch the Lord move upon the President of the Church to proclaim the Lord’s will.

This prophetic process was followed in 2012 with the change in minimum age for missionaries, and again with the recent additions to the Church’s Handbook, consequent to the legalization of same-sex marriage in some countries. Filled with compassion for all, and especially for the children, we wrestled at length to understand the Lord’s will in this matter. Ever mindful of God’s plan of salvation and of His hope for eternal life for each of his children, we considered countless permutations and combinations of possible scenarios that could arise. We met repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer and sought further direction and inspiration.

And then when the Lord inspired his prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson. Revelation from the Lord to his servants is a sacred process, and so is your privilege of receiving personal revelation. My dear brothers and sisters, you have as much access to the mind and will of the Lord for your own life as we apostles do for his church. Just as the Lord requires us to seek and ponder, fast and pray, study and wrestle with difficult questions, he requires you to do the same as you seek answers to your own questions.

I have no reason to doubt President Nelson’s account of the lengthy struggles he and other apostles engaged in, or their compassion for Church members or their determination to fill their charge as apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. (As a denizen of Facebook, I know that a great many people do seem to doubt the truthfulness or goodwill of Church leaders; this post, however, is not the place to lodge those doubts.) He has described an experience that matches the admonition to Oliver Cowdery to “study it out in [their] own mind[s],” and, after that study, and counseling and prayer, the Lord “spoke peace” to their minds about the decision voiced by President Monson.

None of that, of course, tells us why the decision was made, or how we as Church members (apart from those local leaders charged with specific responsibility) should act toward each other and toward those most affected. I hope Church leaders will give us more about the why, at General Conference in April if not earlier. Our own attitude toward the revelatory process, and the sustaining of those two quorums, and our behavior and speech toward other Church members, though, is up to us.

They can be difficult questions. But as President Nelson reminded us at the end of the quoted bit from his talk, we have “access to the mind and will of the Lord” for our own lives – but not for the direction of the Church. It isn’t easy access, though. “Just as the Lord requires us to seek and ponder, fast and pray, study and wrestle with difficult questions, he requires you to do the same as you seek answers to your own questions.”

Challenge on.